Bisociation as dungeon device

Let me share something with you.

I committed to building a megadungeon for the Desolate North a while ago. Quite a while ago. The first thing I started with was an idea of what kind of place I wanted and a tie-in to the campaign. I decided on an old dwarven fortress, abandoned for centuries. I promptly made a side-view map (pretty cool, too, and pretty detailed, if I may say so myself)...and then got swept up in real life. This was back before my recent spate of posting, mind.

When I came back to it, I had this great side-view map, and some of the entrance to level 1 mapped out. And...it sat there. I knew I should work on it, but it sat there. Why?

I just wasn't enthused about the idea. First, there was the setting idea - Oh, great, another dwarven fortress dungeon, just like other classic dwarven fortress dungeons! how original and wonderfully evocative! - and then there was the fact that, even if I liked the setting idea, I didn't want to play with it for a whole megadungeon's worth of space and effort. It sat there.

Until, talking it over with my wife one day, I came upon the solution. See, I still like the idea of an old dwarven fortress. It fits in very nicely with the Desolate North, as the first clue that this is actually an area of ancient history instead of virgin territory. But I didn't want to stick with it for the whole dungeon. So what to do?

Bisociate. The dungeon is two different things at the same time in the same place. (Hat tip to Kenneth Hite. Suppressed Transmission is a big part of my gaming bildungsroman.)

So at the same time as the dungeon is indeed an ancestral homeland for a civlization of dwarves that was never supposed to be here and is only in the crackpot theories of some discredited sage, it is also so much more, weirdly layered over it and shining through it and competing with it. Which set of myths is true? What exactly is the dungeon? Is it inside out?

This has a bunch of benefits. Firstly, I feel less like I'm leading the players on by the nose if I shove in discoverable bits about the lore. After all, through the bisociation they can come to their own conclusions about the history of the dungeon and the Desolate North, and I can't even say that they're wrong.

Further, it allows me to throw in a bunch of stuff that's interesting and Weird and cultish and oh-so-appropriate to what gets my creative juices flowing without feeling tied to the dusty and tired theme of 'underground mountain fortress for short people' that's just, by itself, missing that je ne sais quoi.

What this isn't is an excuse for the dungeon to not make sense or go 'gonzo.' I could use it that way, but I don't want to. ASE is all well and good, but I don't want to play it. Besides, Mr Wetmore is better at it than me by miles, despite sharing a first name.

But it does feel freeing. I can draw rooms without worrying overly about whether or not they fit with the dwarven theme, or (especially on lower levels) even if it exactly made sense for someone to build them this way. I can include whole other themes if I want without breaking stride, so long as I can tie them all together into the larger bisociative picture.

Ultimately, though, it passes the best test of all: I'm actually drawing it. I have the first (of four) sections of level 1 nearly completed (on graph paper, not keyed) despite the fact that my only time to work on it is in snatches and starts. (Mostly in the morning while waiting for my professor to come to class.) And I'm excited about the place, about drawing it and keying it and putting it all together and letting PCs loose to wreck it. Ask my wife; I won't shut up about it.

That's nice for you, but what can I do with it?

That's a valid question. After all, you're here reading for ideas about your own gaming. Here's the thing: you can do it too.

Let's say you have an idea for a dungeon. For the sake of an example, we'll go with 'ancient Greek with animal men' in the tradition of Jacquays. That's a good theme, but if you want (or if you're struggling) you can bisociate (the italics are traditional). The dungeon has another theme. Not a complementary one, a completely new one that's sufficient unto itself. Going with our example, you can also have 'original touch-down spot and temple to the Elder Things'.

How does this work? That's up to you and how far you want to take it. Maybe different levels are on different 'planes' or places and interpenetrate. Maybe the dungeon changes from visit to visit (making restocking potentially very interesting, if a lot of work). Maybe if you're on drugs you see things differently - not more or less true, just differently. Maybe if you go right at the fork, you find one thing, but if you go left, you find another. Maybe there are different groups of monsters in your factions that only make sense in one of the idioms but not the other.

The possibilities are endless.

Try it out.

Lessons from real adventurers

I've been reading books by real world adventurers lately. These are people who actually did what we pretend around our tables to do: these men went out into the deep and untamed wilderness, crawled around the hexes, and even in some cases descended into dungeons.

I'm really not in the mood for more introduction today. Too much other stuff to get done, and my creativity wears thin along with my sleep schedule. So I'll skip the coy insinuations about 'verisimilitude' and 'howling empty wilderness' and so forth and get straight to the potentially gameable lessons about what their expeditions have in common and how they work. (Note also that I don't have any interest in claims about whether or not these adventurers were representing themselves and there adventures accurately. That way lies politics.)

Caravans

Adventurers travel in caravans. For one thing, there's safety in numbers, but for another, for
any serious length of time you need to bring a caravan to carry all the stuff you need. Food, (sometimes water), tents, gifts, weaponry, various utility supplies (rope, lights, etc.), clothes, gifts (see below), feed for the animals, etc. Caravans will slow you down, since you have to deal with drovers and animals and all the little inconviences that crop up, but without a caravan you're just heading out into the bush to starve to death.

One further advantage of a caravan is that it gives you a disguise. You can travel as a merchant instead of an adventurer (or foreign conqueror).

Finally, bringing a caravan allows you to set up a base camp (see below).

Lots of hirelings

This is part and parcel with the caravan. Caravans need lots of people. At the bare minimum, if you're just bringing a feed pony and a gear pony along with your own mounts, you'll need a drover, a varlet, and a guide. With an actual caravan you need drovers, packmasters, servants, and possibly guards.

A decent rule of thumb is that you need roughly twice the number of (non-combatant) followers as you have pack animals, and if you need guards you need at least half that many. This doesn't include guides, retainers, or camp followers.

Settlement to Settlement (or well-to-well)

Caravans generally move from settlement to settlement. Cities and towns are few and far between, but small villages (mobile or otherwise) are more common. For one thing, paths are more likely to lead you that way, so unless you're blazing trail it's going to happen naturally. For another, native settlements are places to rest, resupply, and learn about the country. You can hire on more people (or animals) if you lost some. You can recover from sickness. You can set up a base camp to see local sights or hunt the local animals (or monsters). You're unlikely to be able to replenish food at a village, though (depending on temperment) the villagers may very well feed you.

Native guides

Central Asians have the best hats

You will want to hire native guides to the territory. They know the paths and the dangers, at
least until over the next hill. They also know the local people, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage. A native guide will probably steer you safely where you want to go, but he might think you're crazy for wanting to go there. He might have ulterior motives for trying to convince you to go somewhere or leading you along a particular path, like wanting to bring you to his home village so his family can sell you horses (and fleece you). He might be from a tribe with bad relations with another tribe in the area, and so want to avoid particular paths or settlements. (You might even get bad relations with that other tribe by being seen with him).

Still, a native guide is all but indispensible. Otherwise you're just wandering around in the wilderness.

Specific purpose (usually provided by external agent)

It is exceedingly rare for adventurers to just wander off into the blue to see what they can see. Burton was looking for Harare. Livingstone was looking for the source of the Nile (and Stanley was looking for Livingstone). Cortes was looking for El Dorado, which was supposed to be a specific place. Burnaby was looking for Khiva. Marco Polo was looking for a trade route. Examples go on.

Often this is further enforced by some other external factor that makes that goal worth attaining outside the simple personal notch-on-the-belt experience for the adventurer.  To use the above examples, Burton was looking for Harare because he was speculating and spying for the English crown. (The area around Harare later became the English colony of Rhodesia.) Livingstone was looking for the source of the Nile because the Royal Society put him up to it.

Knowledge of places and things therefore becomes important. External agents will offer rewards (or, if you're reputable, fund you beforehand) for specific pieces of information, such as the location and defenses of cities, the sources of rivers or other important geographical features, cultural knowledge from remaining artifacts, decryption of local languages, etc. Each power that wants something will want something specific, though (depending on the nature of the place) they might be happy with something else. The King is going to want military information, but the College of Sages might be overjoyed to gain mummies and surveys of a burial mound when they originally sent you to learn a new language. Or they might not.

Hirelings (and natives) are not equals

Generally speaking, hirelings are going to be hard-working or lazy. In either case, they expect you to be in charge of the expedition and act like it. We're not running a democracy here; you're the guy in charge. The lazy and duplicitous ones especially take a firm hand. An example from Burnaby: his drover didn't want to load up the pack animals at the proper times, because he didn't like the pace Burnaby set. Further, he would pack up sloppily, and when the burdens fell apart use the excuse that Allah wills all things, so what can we do? to which Burnaby replied by kicking and beating him soundly. When the drover protested, Burnaby replied, 'Allah wills that you be lazy, and Allah wills that I beat you for it, so what can we do?' After that, he never had another (large) problem with the drover.

The same goes for natives, although less so. When you first come upon a native tribe or village, the members are going to either assume you are higher status than they, or they will test you to see, sometimes to the point of aggression. If you try to be overly accommodating, that may be a sign of weakness. Of course this varies from people to people; knowing how to behave is earned by experience and good counsel.

What people like can be surprising

This is best illustrated with an anecdote from Sir Richard Francis Burton.

Crossing the Fiumara we ascended a hill, and found upon the summit a large kraal alive with heads of kine. The inhabitants flocked out to stare at us and the women uttered cries of wonder. I advanced towards the prettiest, and fired my rifle by way of salute over her head. The people delighted, exclaimed, Mod! Mod! —“Honor to thee!”— and we replied with shouts of Kulliban —“May Heaven aid ye!”

Bring gifts, lots of gifts

You aren't going to get anywhere with natives or others without bringing things to give away as a sign of your magnanimity and good-will. Even among those who prize generosity to strangers, if you're constantly taking without giving back you'll quickly sour your welcome. These don't have to be expensive, but they do have to be valued. At the same time, if you show yourself to have too free a hand, you're setting yourself up to have a train of beggars and thieves. Recognize who's in charge and be generous to him and his people.

Sir Richard Francis Burton, the original inspiration for this post

Alternatives to the Random Encounter Clock

One of, if not the chief function of random encounters is to force the players to make decisions about what to do and what to leave alone. This is usually expressed as a penalty for taking more time or extraneous actions, and it usually is, since random encounter rolling is usually tied to time spent - i.e., actions taken.

Unfortunately, in my experience of GURPS this pretty much completely breaks down. Further, even in systems where it usually works, there are downsides. Perhaps the encounters are too dangerous, especially in a densely-inhabited dungeon where they would bring others. If handled poorly they can become a joke or a severe annoyance for the players. Sometimes they send the wrong message, or they simply aren't wanted in your dungeon.

Nevertheless the function of rewarding time and action economy is worthwhile to salvage. I originally thought of using random encounter tables along with faction diagrams to give reinforcements to the set-piece monsters, but the more I mulled this over, the less I liked the idea. One of the reasons random encounters work is because they give immediate consequences to the players. Generally, immediate consequences are better for informing behaviour than mediate. With the reinforcement idea, or any other scheme that puts off the results, players are more likely to shoot themselves in the collective foot. In the example given, they'd most likely keep doing whatever until the monster density became so great there was no feasible way to proceed, or until it maximized - and then there would be no further disincentive.

Then I had a breakthrough: why does a wandering monster system have to involve monsters at all? If the central point is to make the players economize their actions, that can be done without monsters as easily as with. Further, avoiding monsters makes it work for systems like GURPS as well, where the attrition due to combat is nowhere near as strong as it is in D&D.

To that end, I give you a few 'timers' I've been thinking over lately:

The Timed Dungeon

The essential feature here is that the dungeon itself has some integral timer which makes exploration progressively more dangerous or difficult. Some specific examples:

• The dungeon is flooding: every <interval> more and more of the dungeon is underwater. To do this you need to know the source, and the relative elevations of various rooms. I'd recommend giving rooms four states - dry, ankle-deep, chest-deep, over-your-head, completely-filled - and rate the source(s) by how many stages it can fill per interval. Generally I'd eyeball the map and flood downhill, with rooms getting to ankle depth before the water spills over to a lower place. Bonus points if you use some fluid other than water - I'm partial to mercury or poison gas.
• The Archmage is out: every turn roll a d6. Once you cumulatively roll 5 1's, he's come back. The party better skedaddle soon, because he's a 60th-level ubermage able to cast Elric's Flaming Haemerrhoids at will. This works well with archmages' towers, elder dragons' dens, demons' lairs, and generally anywhere you can stock a big nasty that the party knows would squish them flat in an outright fight. A variant has the bad guy already there, but temporarily neutralized - asleep, behind a failing barrier, whatever. Season dice and intervals to taste.
• The dungeon is unstable: maybe it's situated in the caldera of a live volcano, or in the rift between the astral and ethereal planes. Or maybe the entrance is an old mine shaft that's under serious stress. This has much the same mechanics as the archmage one above, but after a certain accumulation of rolls the entrance will be closed, or the dungeon will collapse, or whatever. A variant on this is the 'clockwork dungeon' - where the map changes every so often, making navigation difficult or impossible. Maybe the dungeon is a wizard's toy, or it's slipping through time, and staying too long will mean you have to deal with dinosaurs or barbarians where you expected your village to be.

The Timed Treasure

 Whereas above the dungeon itself was becoming undelvable over time, in these scenarios it's just becoming undesirable to do so, due to disappearing reward.

• Kingdom of the Sidhe: After a certain time passes, all the loot in or from the dungeon will lose all value. The adventurers had better retrieve and spend it beforehand! Keep a timer keyed to turns or hours or whatever. Whenever enough time passes, increment it by one. Don't forget to make sure the players know they need not only to acquire the loot, but get rid of it too! An elven favorite is turning leaves into gold, but fresh basilisk blood or psionic crystals that must be preserved by the local alchemist after being chiseled from the walls are also good ones.
• Explosive treasure: Do you really want to muck around when you have a backpack full of white phosphorous in kerosene? Make the treasure valuable but volatile. It doesn't have to be explosive; it might be an acid, or a powerful djinni bottled in a jar and yearning to get out, or carefully preserved bottles of essence of green slime. Every time the characters do something dangerous, it has a chance of backfiring.
• There goes the neighborhood: The denizens of the dungeon have decided for whatever reason to pack up and leave, bringing their stuff with them. Much like the coming of the archmage in reverse. Roll a d6. After 3 or so 1's, randomly or by fiat pick a faction; they exit the dungeon with all their treasure. To complicate matters, the PCs might be between them and the exit.
• Competition: The old standby; have another party racing the PCs through the dungeon. This takes a care and finesse which is outside my scope. I'd think at the very least you'd have structured tables and a general idea of how the NPCs will progress through the dungeon, but coming up with specifics for running this scenario is left as an exercise for the reader. An exercise he'll hopefully then publish on a blog, so I can steal his ideas.

All of these methods only work if the party knows what's going on. I can't stress that enough. Often this can be handled narratively either in the moment ("The dungeon appears to be flooding with a silvery liquid. Judging by its rate of flow, you'd expect this place to fill up fairly quickly - unless there are hidden depths you don't know about.") or beforehand. ("The old man insists that he heard strange rumblings over the last week and the Crypt of Sasura is on the verge of collapse after all these centuries, so you'd better hurry.") Still, that may not always be the case, and the players should always have at least a rough idea of how their time limits are being decided. If that's too 'gamist' or something for you, don't use these methods.

Paladins

 Scax, the player of Rori and new to the table, rolled an 18 for charisma last night for his new character. Naturally, the question came up of his playing a paladin.

I'm not sure whether or not I like paladins. Sure, the concept is fun - he's a questing Holy Knight, like Percival or Galahad or the Templars or the Hospitallers. But if we're honest, isn't that niche pretty well covered by the Cleric if you want godly powers, or the Fighter with appropriate background tweaks?

Still, with the exception of the monk (whom I find egregious) and the assassin (annoying), I'm not going to curtail my players' options. If they want a paladin, they can have a paladin. Really, I can't blame them; the role has a certain irreducible flavor.

According to S&W Complete, "Paladins will not work with characters other than those of Lawful alignment unless ordered to do so by a superior officer of the Paladin’s order, by a Lawful prince, or by the high priest  of a Lawful temple." I disagree.

First, such a restriction means one of two things in play: either it is a restriction on the rest of the players, and not the paladin, or the paladin will never be played. That's not fun. Second, it's not really how I see a godly crusader behaving.

So for my game, instead, Paladins have to have some specific goal which reflect why they're going adventuring. This can be pretty much anything that passes the sniff test, and is dependent on the creativity of the player. Some examples might include, "End the influence of the Cult of the Red Hand," "Pacify the Dagoland Marshes," "Root out and destroy the heresy of Pelasgos that is gripping temples in the hinterland," "Convert all the orcs from the worship of Tectonicus their heathen god," or whatever. Specificity is important, not only because it needs to be a restriction and a direction, but because it seems a great way to flesh out the world further. (Suddenly there's a Dagoland Marshes, or a heresy in the church, or a cult, or a general religion of orcs.)

A Paladin will not do anything that doesn't obviously and pretty directly further his goal. You want to go spelunking in those caverns you found last week? That's great. How exactly does that relate to erecting a shrine to Isel and teaching all the pagans in this land to worship Him? Well, that's what I'll be doing while you lot are off futzing around. For this reason, I recommend having a back-up character to play whenever the party wants to do something that doesn't align with the Paladin's goals.

Paladins do not, however, have any restrictions of association based on the class. If consorting with Chaotic people truly will further the goal of converting all of the elves to the Munificent Blood, then consorting with Chaotic people is what you will do.

If a paladin ever accomplishes his task, he chooses another. (Or, alternatively, he's retired, because frankly at that point you've come as close as possible to 'winning' D&D.)

New spell and other miscellanry

Do you like session reports? I like session reports. I've mentioned before that what finally inspired me to run the Temple of Elemental Evil is session reports, especially Peter's. +Jason Woollard has a blog full of well-written session reports. They read like stories, which is the best kind.

Mucking around with putting together a small dungeon on the side, I invented a new spell. Some background: the precept of the dungeon is that it's a reptile-man shrine, from back when their civilization ruled the earth, à la H.P. Lovecraft or R.E.H.

Blessing of the Eye      (Special)

Duration: See below
Cost to cast: 5. Cannot be maintained, must be recast. See below
Time to cast: 10 sec
Prerequisites: None, or See Secrets, or whatever. The idea is this is a secret spell.

Casting Blessing of the Eye requires the caster to draw a rune of Kiskig's Eye on a solid surface in his own blood. The caster takes 1 HP of damage for each day of duration, chosen at time of casting, that does not heal until the spell ends. Once cast, the Eye disappears from the surface as though soaking in (though Mage Sight will allow it to be seen).

While the Eye is active, the caster can see through it at any time without concentration and can cast spells through the Eye as though in its exact location.

Any night the caster sleeps while the eye is active, he is affected by nightmares as per the Nightmares disadvantage on B144 (SC roll 12 or less). I recommend something like The Shadow out of Time

Questions I forsee

Why cast this instead of Wizard Eye or Invisible Wizard Eye? You can cast through Kiskig's Eye. You cannot cast through Wizard Eyes. Also, this lasts longer.

What abuse potential do you see? First thing that popped into my mind when I put my player hat on was drawing this on a sheet of paper and slipping it under doors. Second was drawing this on my allies so I could always see where they were and cast spells on them or their enemies. This might be especially egregious since I could sit at home in my tower and still be useful on the adventure.

If you don't like these potential uses, specify that the spell must be cast on some relatively immovable surface (like a wall or a door) and/or that the maximum range is also dependent on HP expenditure; something like 1 HP per mile or league should work.

Dashing hats

I have an affectation for hats. Yes, you read that right: an affectation, not an affection. I'm not really a clothes-horse; I just like to pretend to be on the internet.

There's something about hats as distinct from other articles of clothing. Sure, suits can be stylish, trousers can exhibit taste, shirts can be slick. Even socks can be suave. But a hat, well, the hat makes the man. Especially a hat like this:

And of course, some hats show your admirers and fellow adventurers just how clever you are:

Dashing hats as treasure:

Unless otherwise stated, any of these hats will give a +2 reaction bonus from townsfolk, neutral bystanders, and intelligent humanoids you find in the dungeon, who will say things like, "Nice hat; you've got style," and, "That, sir, is the right model of a gentleman's haberdashery. Bravo!" In addition, all of these hats provide DR 3/1* to the skull. (If it matters, the effects are magical. Unless you decide otherwise.)

Hat of Faultless Coiffure: This hat looks like a flamboyant cavalier hat made of deep purple, blue, or red felt with the feather of some flamboyant creature, and in most respects behaves like one. However, it provides DR 10 (rigid, instead of the DR noted above) to the skull (and, if using partial hit locations, on a 2/6 to the face), doubled vs. toxic or corrosion attacks. In addition, it always is in prime condition and never soiled. Even if you swim through a lake of blood, all you need to do with your hat is briskly brush it off.

Of course, as every real connoisseur knows, the truly valuable power of this hat is that it also keeps your hair in faultless condition as long as it is worn.

Hat of Irresistible Allure: This homburg of black felt takes the usual powers of dashing hats and amplifies them. It gives you a +6 (!) reaction bonus on any request that will allow the requestee to stay near you. Mostly this is helpful, though it may occasionally become a nuisance, since creatures will behave according to their disadvantages, so that Greedy folks will try to steal or con you out of the hat, Lecherous ones will...well, let's not go there. Specifically, people or intelligent humanoids with the Jealous disadvantage will instead react at -4, as they envy your fine hat.

Hearty Haberdash: This is a pork pie that has earned its name. Specifically, usually it's an understated piece of headgear, suitable for natty suits and walking about town. However, thrice per day on command (usually something suitable like "If the thief is honest I'll eat my hat!") it will turn into a meal's worth of fine victuals of the owner's preference. Furthermore, the meal is so refreshing it restores all lost FP and ER as well as 1 HP.

Cap of the Wilds: This hat can be any of a number of sorts, with popular options being a papakhi, a kolpik, or among the more quixotic a deerstalker. Instead of the usual reaction bonus, it incurs a -1 reaction modifer penalty with most intelligent humanoids. However, with wood elves and mountain elves as well as all faery creatures and wild animals, it confers a +3 reaction bonus. In addition, it grants a series of woodland skills, either giving them at Attribute+2 or conferring a +4 on those who already have the skills. Popular choices are Survival (Woodlands or Tundra), Tracking, Camouflage, Weather Sense, Naturalist, Animal Handling, and Fishing.
  
Mitre of Holy Might: Of-times a tiara despite the name, this highly-coveted headgear acts as a personal Mana Enhancer 1 for Sanctity to Good religions plus allows divine intervention once per day as per the Cleric power-up in Dungeon Fantasy 11. However, on sight it instantly enrages all demons and undead, who will attack the wearer ruthlessly and exclusively in an effort to destroy him and his fancy-schmancy hat. In addition, any time the wearer comes into proximity to an evil altar, roll 3d: a 6 or less indicates that he has drawn the personal ire of the deity to which the altar belongs, gaining that god/dess as a personal Enemy (Hunter, but with intervention usually restrained to high-powered minions and occasional bolts of unholy fire) with an appearance of 6 or less. Subsequent enemies can either be new deities or increase the frequency of appearance; GM's choice.

One-use item: Cockatrice arrows

This is just a quick post to get this idea down before it flies out of my head. It isn't very original in conception, but hey, you do what you can.

Cockatrice Arrows

These arrows are fletched with cockatrice feathers. As such, they must be handled with gloves to avoid petrifaction. When shot at an enemy, they do normal damage, then provoke a HT-10 roll to avoid turning to stone, along with all carried and worn gear. The HT roll is at +1 per point of DR not penetrated, and is also given a modifier equal to SM (since it's harder to turn larger things to stone). Magic resistance does not add to the roll. The arrow is turned to stone as well, meaning each can only successfully be used once.

The arrows are otherwise normal, and can be enchanted normally. For obvious reasons, most arrows with cockatrice fletching bear bodkin points.

They are effectively priceless, as only a rare few enchanters know the trick of handling the feathers without being turned themselves and yet imbuing the effect on the arrow as a whole. If found on the open market, they might go for $10,000 per arrow.

Rumours persist of other similar arrows, made from the eggteeth of basilisks or like substances. Some even whisper of a bow whose string is made from the sinew of a medusa that confers this effect on all arrows fired from it.



This could also work as a sort of trap for greedy uncareful delvers, but I'd be very careful with this and make it clear that the feathers on those arrows inside that chest you just found are weird, and hey, are you sure you don't want to make a Hidden Lore (Magical Items) roll?

Dispel Magic Aura

One of the pieces of wisdom floating around about GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that mages aren't responsible for the damage output like they are in D&D. Instead, that's the fighter-types. Sure, a Wizard might be able to kick off a 17d Stone Missile, but that's once, whereas the Knight is doing 3d+6 a turn.

Unfortunately, one of the pirmary ways to make a cool effect on a monster that is otherwise 'mundane' is to say that magic works weirdly on it, or it has strange immunities to magic.

This could have the unfortunate effect of further marginalizing mages as combatants. "Oh, great - not only do my spells do diddly-squat to the owlbear compared to an axe, but now I have to overcome Magic Resistance, too. Remind me why I volunteered to play the Wizard?" In fact, this can already be seen in some ways just with the standard monster tropes: the Body Control mage can't do much against a zombie or a golem, but the knight's sword works just fine. (Sure, the golem has DR 10. The knight doesn't care when his average damage is 16.5.)

One solution is just not to use those special properties, and it has its merits. If, instead of making your creature Immune to Mind Control you remove its vitals, it has a wider appeal. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well for monsters that are generally accepted to be humanoid. If your mind-flayer doesn't have a heart, fine. But if your orc doesn't have guts, it's a little weird, and if that holds true for not only orcs but goblins, gnolls, ogres, bugbears and giants, I'd cry foul.

So we're "stuck" with the idea that mundane monster special abilities need a magical basis, but not wanting to further marginalize mages who engage in combat. Where does that leave us?

To answer that question, I asked myself, "Where are wizards and their ilk useful in combat?" and the answer I got was twofold: they buff the damage dealers, and they remove obstacles to them dealing damage.

Enter the idea of a Dispel Magic aura as one answer. Think of it like a cross between an Affliction and a Mana Damper. (Technically, you could probably build it as an Affliction with Aura and Based on Different Attribute: Spell Level, with the effect of "Dispels temporary effects and suppresses permanent ones." Slap on an Area or Emanation enhancement if you want it to be activated by proximity instead of touch.)

The way I envision it is that anyone who touches or is touched by a creature with a dispel magic aura immediately loses all temporary spells placed on him, resisted by the highest (or lowest, or not at all, depending on how much of a pain it is) spell level he has on currently. That Knight was Great Hasted by the Wizard? Not anymore. Oh, also, whoops, but the Continual Light went out.

If the attacker doesn't have any temporary enchantments on, then hitting the creature with a magic weapon temporarily suppresses one level of enchantments on the weapon. (So, for example, if the weapon is a +3 Accuracy +4 Puissance Penetrating Weapon (2) Ghost Weapon Dancing Sword, after it hits it becomes a +2 Accuracy +3 Puissance weapon without any of that other stuff.) Conversely, if the creature hits an opponent, that opponent's armor (or other miscellaneous gear, GM's call) temporarily loses one level of enchanment.

In order to avoid this being a huge bummer, there are a few restrictions. First and foremost, loss of permanent enchantment is purely temporary. I'm leaning toward it being of 1 minute duration, as long enough to cover any but the longest fights, but short enough not to be a hassle out of combat timing. (Different hits stack effects but just reset the timer for easy book-keeping.) Secondly, this only affects spells on other people. Missile spells, area spells, and Regular spells cast on the creature itself act normally, meaning that magic users can still affect it.

Since I'm not trying to sell books, I'm not going to stat up this power according to the RAW. Instead, I'll just note it down like so:

Dispel Magic Aura: This aura suppresses magic. Anyone who touches or is touched by the creature with this power immediately loses all spells cast on himself or being concentrated on at the moment of contact, subject to the resistance of the highest spell level in effect. In addition, any strike on the creature suppresses on 'level' of enchantment on the striking object for one minute, with multiple strikes causing cumulative effect but not cumulative time. Any hit by the creature suppresses one 'level' of enchantment on the armor or miscellaneous gear of the person hit, in the same way.

I imagine gnolls in the world of the Temple will have this. After all, they're twisted magical amalgamations of hyena and man, created long ago by an evil archmage as shock-troops to use against his foes. 

Consumable magic items in GURPS

One of the things that Dungeons and Dragons has in profusion that GURPS lacks are consumable magical items. Certainly, we still have one-use items like scrolls and potions, and there are mana stones for mages, but in the place of wands et. al. with charges, we've substituted items of infinite use whose drawback is instead that they draw on the user's FP.

Unfortunately, this is not an equivalent solution. There's quite a bit of cleverness in limiting the use of a magic item; it allows for imbalances to naturally self-correct, and it adds an interesting dynamic of resource management to the use of the items. (I contend that managing non-renewable resources is inherently riskier than managing renewable ones, because the stakes are higher. Accordingly, the payoff can be bigger, and the act of deciding more interesting).

Here's where if I were less interested in mathematics and fun, I'd suggest waving your hands about mana-stones and just giving the items charges and be done with it.

I've always disliked the system of charges. It's too easy to measure, and it requires meticulous book-keeping. Boring, I say.

On the way home from work I had a flash of insight. GURPS magic items already have a statistic that doesn't usually matter much: Power. Power is usually 15, and is equivalent to the effective skill of the enchanter. Mostly it seems to be used for resistance rolls and determining if the item functions (e.g. low mana zones).

Wait, it's equivalent to a skill, so what about a roll-under mechanic?

Every time a PC uses a magic item with limited uses (usually things that let you cast spells or give you temporary effects, like rings of invisibility or fireball wands rather than magic swords), the player rolls 3d6. If he rolls at or under the current effective Power of the item, it behaves normally. If he rolls above the current effective Power of the item, the effect still happens, but the Power of the item is reduced by 1. (It's more stressing to a wand to use it in a low mana zone.) An 18 is always a failure.

Once the item's power goes to 0 (or 2, if you like - it's a difference of two uses), it is depleted and no longer counts as magical. Maybe it can be recharged, maybe it can't.

To get a feel for how this would work, I ran the probabilities, with my target at 75%; that is, I figured out in how many rolls it would take for the item to have a 75% chance of depletion, based on starting Power:

Power 14: 37 rolls
Power 15: 66 rolls
Power 16: 140 rolls
Power 17: 434 rolls (here's where the exponential progression breaks to a purely arithmetic one)
...
Power 20: 1317 rolls

The system isn't perfect; over a thousand rolls is effectively infinite. However, you can easily assign Power yourself for items the PCs find in the dungeon. Interestingly, this lines up nicely with the enchantment rules in GURPS Magic, which point out that most items will probably have Power 15. (I'm ignoring the bit where they need Power 15 in order to function, of course. I will keep this for swords and other always-on items, but for consumables I'm using it in a different way.)

What about permanent items? If you want to keep some, as truly powerful artifacts, I'd recommend just assigning them a Power of 25 or 30 and ignoring the book-keeping. At the same time you can ratchet up the price for a high-Power item as recommended in Magic, not to mention a premium for the rarity, if this thing even has a sell-price.

Where do rumors come from?

I've finally been reading Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels. It seems a rite of passage into the inner mysteries of the dungeon-crawling hobby, after all. This will be relevant soon.

Rumors are an important part of adventuring in dungeons. It's through rumors that players often get their first pieces of concrete information about the dungeon. Without rumors, meaningful choices are difficult to make in that first foray. "Which entrance do we take?" boils down to a cast of lots without something behind it. "What are we looking for and where are we looking for it?" resolves no further than "For treasure," and "In the dungeon." In fact, it can move one step further back; often the way PCs even know there's a dungeon with treasure in it in the first place is through a rumor, though that's usually given away for free, at least at first.

We're all familiar with the old trick of the old man in the tavern/on the roadside/hanging by his toenails from an invisible petrified troll. The reason we're all familiar with it is because it is a time-tested method of rumor communication. However, unless we're in this for the silliness, we're also tired of it. Sure, you can sometimes get away with it if you steer very clear of the words "old man" and "tavern", but it's still pretty recognizable. So, how do we get rumors to our players without seeming hackneyed?

Often the answer is, "young woman in a tavern," or "grizzled man in a not-tavern" or some such. These are good answers, but let me put it to you that you can, at one stroke, tell the players about your local dungeon and flesh out your world before their eyes in an unobtrusive and wonderful way.

He saw a blue-white, green-white flicker against the foliage. It was a Twk-man, mounted on a dragon-fly, and light glinted from the dragon-fly's wings.
Liane called sharply, "Here, sir! Here, sir!"
The Twk-man perched his mount on a twig. "Well, Liane, what do you wish?"
"Watch now, and remember what you see." Liane pulled the ring over his head, dropped it to his feet, lifted it back. He looked up to the Twk-man, who was chewing a leaf. "And what did you see?"
"I saw Liane vanish from mortal sight—except for the red curled toes of his sandals. All else was as air."
"Ha!" cried Liane. "Think of it! Have you ever seen the like?"
The Twk-man asked carelessly, "Do you have salt? I would have salt."
Liane cut his exultations short, eyed the Twk-man closely.
"What news do you bring me?"
"Three erbs killed Florejin the Dream-builder, and burst all his bubbles. The air above the manse was colored for many minutes with the flitting fragments."
"A gram."
"Lord Kandive the Golden has built a barge of carven mo-wood ten lengths high, and it floats on the River Scaum for the Regatta, full of treasure."
"Two grams."
"A golden witch named Lith has come to live on Thamber Meadow. She is quiet and very beautiful."
"Three grams."
"Enough," said the Twk-man, and leaned forward to watch while Liane weighed out the salt in a tiny balance. He packed it in small panniers hanging on each side of the ribbed thorax, then twitched the insect into the air and flicked off through the forest vaults. - Jack Vance, The Dying Earth

 Sure, now that I see it in text, it seems obvious. Still, here are some possible similar answers:

1. Rivers talk. Larger rivers not quite that often; they've grown wearier of speech than their smaller cousins, but "babbling brook" isn't just a poetic description. With the right incentive (anything from helping clear the banks of that annoying snarl of trees from last season's flood to just being nearby), a river can tell you anything that has been going on in lands it flows through.
2. If you dance in the faerie rings in the forest, the Little People speak freely, though they might laugh at you for being so concerned with the doings of the mortal world, and you might end up with more (or less) than you bargained for.
3. When the moon is new and the stars are out, fireflies will arrange themselves in intelligible patterns, of maps or sometimes even short phrases. No one knows what intelligence guides them to do this.
4. The Akashic Record exists. Sometimes it impinges itself on a consciousness that hasn't gone looking to tap it. Maybe it's lonely? (This is, potentially, both a source of rumours and an adventure hook if you feel like doing a dream-dungeon.)
5. Owls are well-known for their wisdom, or at least their loquacity. In exchange for a small morsel of fresh meat, they will happily divulge what they know of the doings of the world, and they have eyes nigh everywhere.

The above are designed to be something that happens to the PCs. Once they know they can get rumors from unconventional sources, they might go seeking them out, but the beauty of the above passage is that Liane happens upon a Twk man. He knows it's a source of rumors. Your players won't, until you show them.